1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication system, a communication device, and a communication method.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a form of a communication system for transmitting and receiving data among a plurality of communication devices, a video (TV) conference system is known in which a remote conference is achieved by using a communication network. In the video conference system, it is possible to carry out a meeting between remote places in a state close to an actual meeting at a conference room where one side of parties such as participants carries out the remote conference by converting an image of a participant etc. at the conference room and voice such as his/her speech into digital data using a communication device (terminal device) of a remote video conference system, transmitting the digital data to a communication device of the other party, and by displaying the image on a display in a conference room of the other party and outputting the voice from a speaker.
In such a video conference system, a microphone is used to capture the voice of the participants in the meeting and a camera is used to capture an image. Because the camera has an angle of view, an image of a participant in the meeting outside the angle of view of the camera cannot be captured. To solve the problem, it is known a method of using a panoramic camera capable of capturing full 360-degree panoramic images. On the other hand, because a normal microphone is omnidirectional, ambient sounds other than the speech of the participant may also be collected. To solve the problem, it is known a method of suppressing collection of ambient sounds and making clear the speech of the participant by using a microphone array to give directivity to a range of collecting sounds of the microphones. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-274463 discloses a method in which a conference terminal shapes a sound collecting beam of a microphone array according to an arrangement pattern of selected participants. Japanese Patent No. 5028944 discloses a technology of using a microphone array configured to arrange a plurality of microphones to detect a direction of a speaker and follow a capturing direction of a camera to the direction.
A method of achieving a more realistic video conference is conceivable by capturing the entire conference room with the panoramic camera in combination of the panoramic camera and the microphone array and directing, when there is a speaker, a sound collecting range of the microphone toward at least the speaker. However, this combination can direct the sound collecting range of the microphone toward the speaker, but there may be a case where an output focusing the speaker is not desired in the communication device of the other party. Therefore, there is a problem that the combination does not allow each of communication devices that constitute the communication system to perform an intended output.